Friday, September 16, 2011

This is dedicated to the one I love...

It's been a long time since I've written - a long time, I know. So it's nice to have a milestone event to write about to get me back into it...and that event is that today Matt and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! As is often the case with the passage of time, it's difficult in many ways to believe that five years have passed so quickly, and equally it seems like we've packed a lot in during those five years.
We treated ourselves to the day off from work, and after getting the boys off to nursery this morning, we headed in for a celebratory lunch at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's Hotel (Chris and Anna had done this a few years ago and highly recommended the experience). I had my usual fashion crisis before we set off, remembering, upon inspection, that I had baked a carrot cake at 1:00 am last Saturday after arriving home from my friend Jess's evening wedding reception. That I baked a cake at 1:00 am wasn't in itself a particular problem, but what was problematic was that I had kept my dress on. All morning today I imagined myself getting ready, only to find about an hour before we had to leave that the dress I had intended to wear today was covered in various dollops of dried carrot cake batter. Probably somewhat amusing in retrospect were the several moments where I tried to work out what the mysterious orange substance was, until the post-party-cake-baking memories resurfaced! I tried to soak the dollops off - successfully! - but not so successful was the drying portion of the dress rescue. Finally, with about ten minutes before we had to leave, I had to accept that even with our heating on full blast and the dress hanging on the radiator, it wasn't going to get dry, and I had to find something else to wear. And of course it was fine!

Lunch was very nice - we went for the posh tasting menu and it was impressive. Even the butter was fancy: two options, one lemon flavored and one curry flavored. Both yummy. We had a little bowl of tomato consomme, roasted breast of grouse with glazed peaches, Cornish crab salad enveloped in finely curled marinated carrots, and then for the main course, Matt had lamb and I had plaice - and was nearly at this point too full to finish it! A giant selection of cheeses then appeared for my dessert, and Matt enjoyed elderflower pannacotta with strawberries and vanilla ice cream. They then surprised us with a little muffin and a "Happy Anniversary" message in chocolate. It was a very nice meal, and wonderful to just sit and not feel rushed and enjoy the moment.

Trying to mark the occasion with a photo in the art deco mirror...

Afterwards, the sun was shining so we took a little stroll through
Hyde Park, and I was tempted to do a tour in the Serpentine pedalo boats
(a la Pride and Prejudice) but it was £8/person for a half hour
and we thought we should head home to pick up B and N, so that will have
to wait til 10 years, perhaps!

The boys were sweet and played in the back with the water hose for ages, while I finished reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake which I'd borrowed from the library a few weeks ago. Not sure how I felt about it but glad to have read it.

And that concludes the day, so happy anniversary to my wonderful husband; we are so lucky. I'm glad to be "back here" and hope to share some of the crazy/hectic/busy tales of the past month or so, if I get a chance. Hope you're well, wherever you're reading from!